Rose-Owls and Pumpkin Girls

Well, here I am updating again to say that I'm leaving. This is becoming something of a habit. (I know exactly why. I didn't travel much for like, four years, so this year has become a whirlwind of going everywhere and seeing everything and trying to do it all without losing my grip on things like deadlines and word counts and TV schedules. It'll settle down soon enough. But right now, it seems like I only update this blog when I'm about to hit the ground running.)

And what a run it's going to be! I'm Guest of Honor at Norwescon next weekend, and will be spending the next week in Seattle rehearsing, writing up, and getting ready. This is a working trip, not a pleasure trip, so if I don't reach out to you going "hey let's hang," please don't take it personally; I need to get my balance before I have to be awesome for a paying audience. But I promise lots of awesome on the other end, even if I'll be wracked with guilt over leaving my cats for this long.

(Alice and Thomas continue well, and exceedingly fluffy. Lilly is getting a bad case of the Olds, and is not doing as great, but she endures, transitioning into that stage of life known as "fueled by hate" among Siamese lovers everywhere.)

I have not been seriously ill since leaving my day job, even though I have seriously exhausted myself several times. I'm not saying that correlation is causation in this case, but I think I can make a good case for the two being connected. Hooray for being out of the plague pit!

More to come.

How I want to be right now:

"OH YEAH I AM GOING TO SEATTLE I AM GOING TO ROCK SOME HOUSES AND MELT SOME FACES AND MAYBE IGNITE THE BIOSPHERE WOO!"

How I am right now:

"I need a nap. Or maybe some more caffeine...yeah. Caffeine would probably help. You know. If there are no naps to be had. Can I have that nap instead? Wait, I have to get on a plane? What? Is this optional? Can't I teleport? How about the Jaunt? Is that up and running yet? I promise to let you sedate me..."

So yeah. I am bound for Conflikt, where a) I will have a wonderful time, even as b) I will work my little blonde butt off, toting my laptop from room to room like the Ghost of Deadlines Past. There may be a certain amount of grumbling darkly and threatening to ignite the biosphere. Good times.

The cats did not approve of the reappearance of The Dread Suitcase; Thomas even tried to barricade me in my room this morning. He failed, on account of he may be a bonsai yeti, but I am a human, and hence much larger than he is. But hey, good show him for trying. Lilly just looked despondent, like she had been waiting for this day ever since I returned from Disney World. Sometimes I think Lilly is the smartest of the cats.

I don't know how much internet, if any, I'll have over the weekend; please don't burn down the internet while I'm gone, I'm still using it.

See you in Seattle!

Lilly says that it's time for an open thread. Obey the Siamese. (Lilly also says that whomever caused her monkey to leave the house for an entire weekend will face her wrath. This is because Lilly is secretly a tiny medieval warlord in a fuzzy, soft, pettable coat. Who's the cutest destroyer? IZZIT YOU?!)

But anyway. Open thread! Say anything! Woo! Lilly says so.



Comment amnesty is on for this post, but I will be reading, and may reply anyway, because I'm wacky like that.

See y'all next week!

I am, to a degree, a public figure. I know that. I am also a low-level enough public figure that I am accessible, unlike, say, anyone who's actually famous. That means that some of the things I do and say will be judged in ways that will seem unfair to me. I know that, too. I've basically come to grips with the fact that if I want to be an author, and if I want to make my living doing this, I'm going to have to deal with people judging me. That being said...

Don't you ever, ever insult my cats. Don't you ever, ever imply that I own them because they're "status symbols," or because I am in some way taking pleasure in the knowledge that other cats are being put to sleep right now. Lilly, Alice, and Thomas are my companions. They are my friends. They are the closest I intend to come to having children, and while I may be up for judgment, they are off limits. Leave my cats the fuck alone.

Why do I get my cats from reputable breeders, rather than from the local shelter? A whole bunch of reasons.

I do it for the health of the cat. When I visit a reputable breeder, I can not only meet the kitten I'm hoping to take home with me, I can meet their parents and grandparents. In the case of Alice and Thomas, I met their great-grandfather. I want to know that my cats have a good genetic shot at a long, happy life.

I do it for the temperament of the cat. I have had incredibly sweet, loving shelter cats in my life. I have also had bitter, terrified, xenophobic shelter cats who couldn't be integrated into a household, because they were too damn scared. I want a kitten that has been socialized and loved, and that has been bred to have a good personality to go with those good genes. I want a Lilly, an Alice, a Thomas, a Ripley, a Toby, an Alligator.

And yes, I do insist on kittens whenever possible. At best, I'm bringing home a new cat to an adult who isn't sure about the situation; at worst, I'm bringing home a new cat to two adults who already think there's no room at the inn. I am loud. I move quickly. I go away for long periods of time. I do things the way I do things, and a lot of adult cats can't adjust to me, no matter how hard we both try.

There are cats in shelters. There are cats in rescues. There are cats in need of homes. But I am not in the market for an adult rescue, and the kittens don't need me to be the one that saves them; kittens stand a much better chance than adults. Why do I know this? I know because I have volunteered at shelters and rescues and free clinics since I was twelve years old. Just like I know that I want as complete of a genetic profile as possible on my cats, because I buried so damn many of them when I was bringing them home from the pound.

My cats are not a zero-sum game. Bringing Thomas home from Betsy's didn't kill a kitten somewhere in the world that was waiting for my love; if it hadn't been Thomas, it would have been no new cat at all. Do I wish that there were no cats anywhere in the world waiting for their forever homes? Yes, I do. But that doesn't mean we shut down the breeders, abolish the breeds, and become a Domestic Shorthair and Domestic Longhair-only world. It means we breed responsibly. It means we support the shelters. It means we spay and neuter our pets.

And it means that my cats are not fucking status symbols. They are not somehow less worthy of love and comfort and a place to sleep than cats who have been abused or abandoned. They are exactly as worthy of all those things. And they are getting them from me, as will all the cats in my future.

If you can't be nice to my cats, you leave them the fuck alone.

This is a rare thing which I am sharing with you; a moment of peace and tranquility the likes of which happens only for a few seconds at a time, and even then, only when the moon is right, and the tide is low, and the world holds its breath.

Behold:



That's Alice closest to camera, with Thomas in the middle, and Lilly on the end. As is always the case with me, the picture is a few weeks old at this point; Thomas is almost twice as big now as he was when this picture was taken (I think shortly after Arisia).

I hope that all is well in your world, and that something makes you as happy as these three balls of vicious blue fluff make me.

Let's go in reverse order, shall we? Because sometimes linearity just doesn't cut it. Anyway, the annual Locus Magazine poll for the best speculative fiction has been posted, covering those items published during 2010. Many excellent things are on the list already, and there are write-in slots for excellent things which you feel should have been included there, but weren't. The poll is open until April 15th, and everyone can vote, although votes cast by actual subscribers count for double. (This is one reason, among many, that it is awesome to have a Locus subscription.) Go, take a look, and help paint an accurate picture of what people loved about the speculative fiction of 2010!

I recently did an interview with the charming Katie Babs, who has posted our conversation for everyone to see. Being more sophisticated about these things than l'il ol' me, she even included graphics and other such awesome bells and whistles. It was a fun interview, with good questions, and I highly recommend taking a peek, if only so she'll feel that her site traffic justifies having me back someday!

Why, no. I do not have any pride. Why do you ask?

The cats continue healthy. Alice is a bit heavier than I want her to be, since recovering from her illness included a lot of gooshy food and spoiling, so we're trying to feed lightly for the moment. This might work better if a) Thomas weren't a growing boy, b) Lilly were more willing to be pushy about her food, and c) Alice didn't flop in the middle of the floor wailing about how she's starving to death and I am the WORST MONKEY EVER. Although, to be fair, Alice's flopping would be more believable if she didn't shake the floor when she did it. Yes, yes, you're starving, my little tauntaun. And next time there's a cold snap, I am going to crawl inside you to keep myself warm.

Thomas is growing at a truly staggering rate; it's like he's taken Alice's size as a personal challenge, and is determined to beat her before the next time he sees Betsy (I always assume my cats are trying to impress their breeder with their spectacular awesomeness). He's still the sweetest thing on four feet, which is good, since otherwise, I would be in trouble. He's very smart, and very curious. He's also stubborn as hell. Last night, he was on my lap, trying to play with the popcorn I was eating, so every time he reached for a piece, I would flick his paw. A normal cat would have grown annoyed and stalked off, furious at such callous treatment. Thomas started flicking me back. I love my Maine Coons.

I also love my Siamese. Lilly remains the lickingest cat in the entire known universe, as the patch of skin she licked off the inside my elbow last night while I slept will cheerfully attest. She's a little daunted by suddenly being the smallest cat in the house, but she's dignified enough (in all regards except for the licking) to hold her own against the fluffy tide.

And now...toys. As you may know, I love toys. My bedroom is like a terrifying cross between a set built for the Halloweentown movies and a toy store. I have well over a hundred My Little Ponies (and am collecting more every day), the entire current Monster High toy line, and a bunch of random assorted dolls, action figures, and weird things, including an anime-style Emma Frost, a hungry flesh-eating wasp-woman, and the Impala from Supernatural. It's a fun room to sleep in sometimes.

Anyway, yesterday, I got home to find a box on my porch. And inside that box...PONIES. Lots and lots of lovely Ponies, including Baby Racer (a yellow Baby Brother Pony with blue hair and a race car on his rump) and Applejack and some beautifully ringletted Candy Cane Ponies...

And Oakly. The My Little Pony Moose. Who has been on my Top 10 Wish List for ages. And now? NOW SHE IS MINE.

It's a good week to be a Pony geek.

Tara is making me a Barbie version of Alice Price-Healy, which has given me an excuse to go shopping for lots and lots of 1/6th scale weapons on eBay. This is incredibly soothing. It's shopping with purpose, and that purpose will result in my having the best. Barbie. EVER. The other Barbie she made for me, Lt. Anis Bihari of the USS Rutan, is currently off-site having her uniform tailored. I expect much joy when she returns. Oh, and they just announced the second wave of the Monster High Dawn of the Dance line, which will include two of my favorite dolls (Draculaura and Ghoulia).

It's a good week to be a toy geek, period. I am a happy blonde.

I try to answer all comments on this journal, because it just seems polite. But after spending the night worrying about my sick cat, and spending the morning medicating her (which she hates), I honestly can't bring myself to answer individual comments on my post about her illness. It's just going to make me start crying again. So...

Thank you all, so very much, for your kind wishes and concern. Alice is still sick, but seems to be on the mend—she felt well enough to glare at me this morning when I hauled her out from under the couch and pumped her full of sticky pink antibiotic goo. Thomas and Lilly are confused and clingy, since they don't understand what's going on, and everyone is thrilled by the sudden wide availability of tuna.

Medicating Alice is easier than it could be, because she is seriously one of the world's most civilized cats; she mostly just squirms and scowls at me, like her infection is my fault, and not the fault of rapidly-replicating bacteria. I cannot explain epidemiology to my cat. I know. I've tried.

I'll keep you posted, and thank you again. I really appreciate it.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to my journal. I'm pretty sure you know who I am, my name being in the URL and all, but just in case, I'm Seanan McGuire (also known as Mira Grant), and you're probably not on Candid Camera. This post exists to answer a few of the questions I get asked on a semi-hemi-demi-regular basis. It may look familiar; that's because it gets updated and re-posted roughly every two months, to let folks who've just wandered in know how things work around here. Also, sometimes I change the questions. Because I can.

If you've read this before, feel free to skip, although there may be interesting new things to discover and know beyond the cut.

Anyway, here you go:

( This way lies a lot of information you may or may not need about the person whose LJ you may or may not be reading right at this moment. Also, I may or may not be the King of Rain, which may or may not explain why it's drizzling right now. Essentially, this is Schrodinger's cut-tag. )

Lilly is, without a doubt, the lovingest, clingiest, lickingest cat I have ever known. She wants to be where I am, all the time. If I'm in the bathroom, she's in the bathroom. If I'm in the bedroom, she's in the bedroom. The only exception comes when we're watching television: she's learned to recognize the volume changes from pausing a video or the live show going to commercial, and will remain patiently on the couch, waiting for me to come back. Did I mention that she's also one of the smartest cats I've ever known in my life? Because seriously, sometimes it's a little bit unnerving.

This morning, Lilly pulled her usual trick of putting her front paws on my thigh and looking at me beseechingly until I pushed back from the desk, then jumping into my lap, where she sat sphynx-style, leaned against me, and buried her head in the crook of my arm. It's amazing how good I've become at typing while she does that. Entire chapters have been written around the purring water hazard that is my Siamese.

Lilly can recognize the opening themes to The West Wing, Haven, Fringe, and Doctor Who; any of these songs will bring her running, as she knows they're a guarantee that I'm about to sit still for an hour. She hasn't learned to read yet, so she doesn't bring me those specific DVDs when she's trying to encourage me to spend some time on the couch, but she brings me other DVDs (and a much wider assortment now that she has Alice to help her get things down). Again, disturbingly smart cat.

Lilly is sweet, friendly, and relatively calm most of the time, which means she doesn't get as much "air time" as Alice, who is much pushier (and puffier). But Lilly is one of the best cats I've ever known. And yes, she's named after Lilly Kane.

I just felt the need to share that.

So recently, I had an unwelcome house guest: an elderly black cat spent about a week and a half in the laundry room, waiting to be removed to its new home. There were a lot of very good reasons for the cat's presence, most of which I don't really want to go into. Lilly and Alice were fascinated by the interloper; Lilly wanted to kill it, while Alice wanted to PLAY PLAY PLAY. Behold the difference between "manic" and "temperamental," ladies and gentlemen. The cat was eventually removed, returning the house to its normal state...but a host's gift was kindly left behind.

We have fleas again.

This was discovered when I took Alice to the groomer on Saturday (she'd managed to develop belly mats, thanks to all my recent traveling, and I just wanted them gone so we could return to non-painful grooming). "Did you know you have fleas? Oh, the poor baby, she's just crawling with them."

As I'm sure you can imagine, I was...displeased. I fought a long, hard battle to get rid of the fleas last time this happened. Since Alice is a longhair and Lilly has a very dense, plush coat, it's possible for them to have fleas without my actually being able to see the signs. And since I brush both of them really regularly, they don't get as itchy as they might otherwise, so I don't get as much visible scratching. I went straight out and got flea medication, along with carpet powder and bedding spray. Then I came home and checked the calendar.

See, most flea treatments are given at one-month intervals, and I needed to be sure the second dose would come due after I got back from Australia. Today turned out to be the magical day. The day I poured poison on the cats.

Alice took it with good grace, because Alice sweats sedatives. Lilly was substantially more offended, and slunk off to glare at me for about twenty minutes. I don't care. THE FLEAS WILL DIE. Thus I swear.

Stupid fleas.